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Too many water lilies!

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  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    Redwing said:
    Offer them to your friends with ponds.  Waterlilies are expensive to buy so they will be grateful and probably jump at the chance.
    Freecycle is good too
    Devon.
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Buy some warm, waterproof pond gauntlets - about £15 - £20 on Amazon. It will make a cold job tolerable.
    Rutland, England
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    And if you have friends who want them perhaps they can come and help you get them out … maybe someone will have strapping sons or grandsons with wetsuits?

    Get a few folk around for a novel sort of Pool Party
    … with a bit of luck your most onerous task could be doling out the mugs of soup 😉 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • I have a 6ft circular pond, 4ft deep, which I built myself. Because I did not want to be forever pulling out waterlilies I planted 4 miniature waterlilies in baskets on the ledge around the edge of the pond. This has worked really well, they do not flower as prolifically as the more usual sized waterlilies but are delightful when they do oblige. They are much more expensive to buy initially but well worth it. Since planting mine 15 years ago all I have ever done is remove any dead leaves in the autumn, never repotted or fed them.
    Your pond is really rather small to accommodate ordinary waterlilies so perhaps the solution could be to remove and give away all of the ones already in the pond and replace with miniatures. They only need about4 ins of water above them so you need a shelf to sit the pots on.
    Advertise your give away plants on your local Freecycle site, at no cost to yourself. I am sure you will find new homes for most of your plants. People around here leave their offers by their gates for people to collect because of Covid. Any uncollected go on the compost heap.
  • Janet500Janet500 Posts: 18
    Thank you everyone for your advice. Just one thing - HOW can they be removed to give away? I expect I'd have to pull them up by the roots?
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